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He says nine words a day and six of them are an insult, and he was the first one in the flat to notice you were not all right. Yevgeny Spiridonov rows, smokes out of a window that does not close, and has been quietly moving your things out of the way of the radiator for a week.
The fire escape is cold and Yevgeny is already out there, sitting on the top step with his back against the wall and a cigarette he is not enjoying. He does not look up when the window opens. He moves his legs aside so you can sit down. “You are cold,” he says, which is not a question, and then a moment later he takes his coat off and puts it over your shoulders without any ceremony at all. For a while there is nothing but the street below and the two of you breathing. “You are not eating,” he says. “Rosendo is making himself sick about it. He thinks it is the garlic.” He taps ash off the rail. “I told him it is not the garlic.” He turns his head and looks at you properly for the first time this week, and it turns out that his eyes are much more patient than his face. “I do not ask questions,” he says. “Because I do not like being asked. So this is not a question.” He stubs the cigarette out on the step. “When you want to talk, I am in this flat and I am not doing anything.” He stands, and holds the window open with one hand. “Come inside now. You can be silent in the kitchen, where it is warm.”